ProQuest this week announced the launch of new, on-demand research service,Udini, that bundles a wide range of resources, including “peer-reviewed academic and trade journal articles, dissertations, international newswires, newspapers, magazines and more,” from thousands of participating publishers for use by independent researchers. Accessible via cloud-based workflow management tool designed for individuals, Udini offers access to high quality research materials an interface for discovery for professional users who may not have access to a research library, or other institutional access, opening a new channel for academic and professional publishers to reach potential users.
Content includes publications from some 3800 publishers, including publishers like Springer, the Nature Publishing Group, the Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the World Health Organization, Cambridge University Press and others, encompassing some 150 million full-text articles, as well as the ProQuest dissertations archive. Users can search and then add desired content to the Udini management tool (which cab also accommodate information from personal libraries and the open web), enabling them to capture a projects' eniter research file in one always-accessible cloud-based space. Purchase plans are flexible—by the article, by the month or by the project, there’s no cost to use or store projects in Udini.
"Premium information, when it’s accessible at all, is distributed behind many different paywalls all over the Web,” said Rich LaFauci, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ProQuest Research Solutions, making research for “unaffiliated users,” confusing and inefficient. “Udini curates and licenses high-quality content…from the end-user's perspective."
